Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Colombia, the world’s third-largest coffee producer, will harvest 30 percent less this year and output won’t return to “customary” levels until at least 2011, exporters said.

Colombia will produce “barely” 8 million bags in 2009, down from 11.5 million bags in 2008, said Mauricio Bernal, president of the committee overseeing Colombia’s national coffee exporters association.

“Colombia does not have a good harvest of coffee,” Bernal said at a meeting today in Cartagena.

Coffee prices have jumped 24 percent this year in New York after heavy rainfall hampered production in Colombia and Brazil and the harvest was delayed in Central America.

“The market is pretty tight on the supply side right now,” Rodrigo Costa, a Newedge USA LLC institutional sales vice president, said in a telephone interview yesterday from New York.

Colombian exports fell 49 percent to 481,000 bags in September from 939,000 bags a year earlier, the Growers Federation said last month. Each bag weighs 60 kilograms (132 pounds).

Arabica-coffee futures for December delivery fell 3.2 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $1.389 a pound on ICE Futures U.S. in New York.

Growing Season

In the season that started in October and runs through September 2010, production will rise to 10 million bags from 8.7 million bags in the year-ago period, Bernal said.

Brazil is the world’s biggest producer of coffee, followed by Vietnam.

The premium paid by traders for Colombian coffee has more than doubled this year after heavy rain cut exports. The price difference between Colombian coffee and New York-traded futures is now about 37.5 cents, based on Bloomberg data.

The Colombian National Coffee Growers Federation last month forecast a harvest of as little as 8.8 million bags this year, down 23 percent from a year earlier, after above-average rainfall damaged plants.

To contact the reporters on this story: Heather Walsh in Bogota at hlwalsh@bloomberg.net; Alexander Cuadros in Bogota at acuadros@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 6, 2009 14:54 EST